People Are Now Taking Placebo Pills to Deal With Their Health Problems —And It’s Working

For over 20 years, Linda Buonanno lived in fear that her irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) would suddenly interrupt her daily routine with frequent trips to the bathroom and unbearable cramping. Buonanno, now a 71-year-old medical assistant and hairdresser from Methuen, Mass., tried everything from drugs to dairy-free diets. Nothing worked. She remembers a particularly tough period over 10 years ago, when she was working on the factory floor of a medical-device company for up to 10 hours a day, six days a week. When an IBS episode would strike, her co-workers would cover for her as she huddled in a corner, keeled over in pain. If she wanted to go dancing with friends at the local club on Sunday, Buonanno would stop eating on Friday so there wouldn’t be anything in her system to interrupt her plans. “It was a horrible way to live,” she says.
One day in 2009, she saw a TV ad looking for people with IBS to enroll in a study. She signed up and was thrilled when she was among about 80 people selected to take part in a first-of-its-kind clinical trial. But when she found out what kind of treatment she’d be receiving, Buonanno felt deflated: a placebo pill. The doctors told her there were no active ingredients in the pills, and the word placebo was labeled clearly on the bottle. She felt she’d gotten her hopes up for nothing.
Three weeks later, after taking the pill twice daily, Buonanno was symptom-free. She had never gone so long without an attack. &ldq...

STOMACH bloating could be caused by eating certain foods in your diet, or by eating too much in one go. Other than avoiding certain foods at dinner time, you could also prevent trapped wind pain and tummy aches with this easy eating trick.

Publication date: Available online 17 December 2018Source: Mammalian BiologyAuthor(s): Mariana B. Nagy-Reis, Victor H.S. Iwakami, Cesar A. Estevo, Eleonore Z.F. SetzAbstractMechanisms that decrease niche overlap in at least one of its dimensions (i.e., spatial, temporal, or dietary) tend to facilitate coexistence of similar, sympatric species. We investigated whether temporal or dietary segregation plays a significant role in the coexistence of Neotropical small felids. In addition, we examined the role of prey activity in shaping their time use. We compared the activity and diet of four felids (oncilla - Leopardus gutullu...

Authors: Shin HJ, Lee H, Na HS
Abstract
Background: Irrigation fluid absorption during endoscopic surgery has been known to alter blood coagulation. We investigated the effect of an irrigation fluid on the coagulation according to the hemodilution level using rotational thromboelastometry (ROTEM) tests.
Methods: Venous blood was taken from 12 healthy volunteers and divided into four specimen bottles, which were diluted to different levels (0%, 10%, 20%, and 40%) using a mixture of 2.7% sorbitol-0.54% mannitol solution. Then, ROTEM analysis was performed.
Results: Significant prolongation of clotting time (C...